


pyrrhic victories (and a farewell)

by goldenfields



Series: cities and countrysides [2]
Category: NCT (Band)
Genre: Ambiguous/Open Ending, Angst, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Character Study, M/M, Stream of Consciousness
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-14
Updated: 2021-02-14
Packaged: 2021-03-14 22:41:49
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,372
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29426172
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/goldenfields/pseuds/goldenfields
Summary: Jaehyun is eight when he was first introduced to him. A boy whose eyes are warm and kind, and nothing like he’s ever seen before. He looks past his mother’s frame, sees a young kid who is nothing but a mere stranger still, and realizes that perhaps change is not something to be afraid of. The next day, he visits him again, calls him Taeyong hyung for the first time, and offers him his mother’s fresh baked cookies.-Jaehyun falls in love with Taeyong and thinks of it as his greatest victory yet.
Relationships: Jung Yoonoh | Jaehyun/Lee Taeyong
Series: cities and countrysides [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2119170
Comments: 4
Kudos: 24





	pyrrhic victories (and a farewell)

**Author's Note:**

> Happy Birthday, Jaehyun! And Happy Valentine's Day to everyone! Enjoy reading! :)

Jaehyun stares at the broken handle on Taeyong’s old closet and wonders if this is what victory feels like.

He vaguely remembers the closet from his childhood. The smell of old wood and dust and freshly washed clothes are always familiar, and Taeyong would always take note of the lavender scented detergent his mother uses for laundry day whenever they would hide inside it.

“It’s hot, hyung,” Jaehyun says, already sweating on both sides of his face. He keeps his legs tucked against him to create more space for Taeyong. “I can’t breathe.”

Taeyong presses his back closer onto the wooden surface behind him. “It smells good here,” he tells him.

Jaehyun furrows his eyebrows, lips puckering in distaste. It smells like wood and dirt. “No, it doesn’t,” he pouts. Taeyong laughs when his squeaky voice starts to break, teasing him even more when his cheeks flush a deeper shade of red. Jaehyun shifts on his spot carefully. “Can we go out now? I’m hungry, hyung.”

Taeyong lifts a finger onto his lips. “Don’t you smell it?”

“Smell what, hyung?”

“Lavender!”

Jaehyun blinks at him. Lavender? He takes a small whiff of the air inside the closet. Dust, old wood, and... lavender detergent.

“Oh,” he muses. “Lavender!”

A heavy sigh ruptures through his lungs only to tear away at the skin on his lips. His skin feels cold with the absence of Taeyong’s warm mouth nipping at the corners, without his rough hands gripping against the sides of his hips. He feels greedy.

“Hyung,” he calls amidst the silence. “What are we?”

Taeyong pulls his pants over his legs with a grunt. “Hm?”

“What are we?” he repeats, breathing quietly through his nose. He keeps his eyes glued onto the broken handle on Taeyong’s old closet, wondering if it would smell the same if he were to step inside. His limbs would probably be unable to fit within the small space now that he’s grown. The insides might still smell of old wood and dust, and perhaps a hint of dirt as well, but no more lavender detergent.

Taeyong turns to him, gritting his teeth. Jaehyun bites down on his lower lip and starts to fist at the blankets pooling around his bare skin. He inhales sharply and waits for the familiar scent of lavender to run under his nose. He waits for Taeyong’s scent to linger against his skin once again, for his breath to blow over the small expanse of his shoulder blades and the pieces of hair on his nape. When Taeyong speaks, Jaehyun finds that the broken handle on the closet remains _broken._

“Go home, Jaehyun. It’s getting late.”

He doesn’t see Taeyong the next day, nor the next week. He continues to stay inside his room, staring at his wall and thinking about the broken handle on the closet door and the way Taeyong’s lips felt like melted iron on his skin. His skin is streaked with burns from his hyung’s hold; scarred with remnants of his lips and teeth and even his fingerprints that just refuse to go away no matter how hard he tries to scrub them off under running water. Maybe he is meant to stay like this – stained with his Taeyong hyung all over. Maybe this is what it means to fall in love.

When he receives the news of Taeyong’s departure, he stays inside his room and stares at his pair of old and dirty shoes. 

* * *

“I’m leaving the club.”

There is confusion lacing Ten’s movements when he looks up to see his junior standing in front of him. Jaehyun sighs through his nose, his shoulders tensed at the sudden confession while the other club members are preoccupied with the new batch of freshmen getting ready for their audition. Ten swallows visibly, his eyes flicking over to the wall clock behind Jaehyun before focusing back onto the teenage boy in front of him.

“Excuse me?” he blinks twice, the corner of his upper lip twitching.

Jaehyun shifts on his feet before casting his eyes onto the floor. His white sneakers are stained with dried patches of mud and dirt, and he was supposed to have already washed them from a few months ago if only he wasn’t too preoccupied with Taeyong leaving their hometown. And so here he is, standing in front of his Ten hyung with his dirty pair of dancing shoes during the first month of a brand new school year.

“I’m leaving,” he repeats, clearing his throat. When he finally looks up to meet Ten’s eyes, he adds, “I want to focus more on my, uhm, academics.”

Ten stares at him pointedly. “Academics?”

“Yeah...”

The auditorium buzzes indefinitely. Ten doesnt answer him immediately. “Go take a seat, Jae. The auditions are about to start,” he tells him instead.

About an hour later, when the first round of auditions for the dance club finally wrapped up, Jaehyun approaches Ten again. He sees him glance at his direction midway through his conversation with another club member, frowning.

“Ten hyung,” he calls for him, fidgeting. “About earlier...”

Ten sighs before sending the club member away. He signals Jaehyun to come with him and the two of them approach the far end corner of the auditorium to retrieve their bags. Jaehyun remains quiet when Ten bids farewell to the others assigned for cleaning up the place, gingerly following Ten’s footsteps as they head out the campus.

It was already dark when they reach the gates. Jaehyun dips his head and bites on his lower lip. Where are they going? He doesn’t know. Ten refuses to look at him when they pass by one of the guards.

“Ten hyung,” he tries again. This time, Ten turns to look at him with an eyebrow raised. They continue to walk quietly, their footsteps resonating through the dark alleys they pass by, and for a moment, Jaehyun contemplates on speaking again.

Ten stops in front of a small convenience store. “You’re not allowed to leave the group.”

Jaehyun lets out a breath he doesn’t even know he’s holding. “Why?”

“Taeyong hyung wouldn’t allow that.”

Jaehyun stills at the name. _Taeyong hyung._ How long has it been since he heard his name? Almost three months now? Suddenly, his skin starts to itch from underneath his sleeves.

“I...” he trails off. Then, he sighs and says, “Taeyong hyung is not here.”

He bites the inside of his cheek and waits. Taeyong’s name rests on top of his tongue comfortably, heavy against the surface where words are hiding underneath. Suddenly, saying Taeyong’s name is more than what he can handle.

“Jaehyun?” Ten tries to search for his eyes. Jaehyun only stops resisting when he feels a hand against his forearm. Ten sighs through his nose, and with a gentle voice, he tells him, “It’s okay to be sad about Taeyong hyung.”

Jaehyun only stares at him. _What do you know?_

“I know you miss him. We all do. But I know he’ll get sad if he finds out that you want to leave the team.”

_Would he?_

Jaehyun swallows thickly. “I’m just...” he trails off, feeling exhausted. Exhausted from _something,_ from _nothing._ Exhausted from waiting, and waiting, and waiting. Sometimes, he still feels Taeyong on his skin, on his hair, on his fingertips, and even on his lips. Most especially his lips. He feels exhausted knowing he’s been waiting for _fucking nothing._ “I’m just tired,” he says in a whisper.

“That’s fine,” Ten assures him. “You just have to let it all out. If you need someone to talk to, you can always come and find me. Okay?”

Jaehyun nods. He breathes. “Okay...”

When he reaches home, he takes his dirty sneakers into the bathroom to clean them. He lets the faucet run to fill the basin with water before submerging them. He scrubs at the dried mud and watches as patches of dirt slowly turn into small blotches.

* * *

He dreams of his Taeyong hyung. Sometimes. It’s evident when he does.

He would come to school with a flushed face, his pale skin suddenly flamed with hues of red and a hint of sweat staining the highest point of his cheeks. _What’s wrong?_ They would ask him. _Nothing. I’m fine, don’t worry about me._ But the truth is, he is still thinking about Taeyong’s fingers and the way they gripped at his hips, bruised his skin, and spread him open. He finds that he wants to feel them again on him, _in him,_ and the thought not only makes him squirm but also sets his skin on fire as though Taeyong is still embedded on him like the mark of melted iron against a pavement.

“Do you want to go out after school?”

He lifts his gaze to meet Jungwoo’s gaze, his elbows propped on top of his desk firmly.

“A new place just opened a few blocks away. Do you want to come with us?” Jungwoo continues and gestures at a few of their classmates. “I heard that the food is good.”

Jaehyun blinks. It doesn’t sound so bad. “Okay,” he says. “I’ll go.”

“Nice!”

The food was mediocre, but being surrounded by his friends made him feel a little bit better. He takes a swift glance over their table, realizing that this is probably his first time going out with some of his frieds from school.

“I’m surprised you came with us today!” Chaeyoung tells him with a smile. “We thought you’d be busy again with your club.”

Jaehyun shakes his head lightly. “I’m not that occupied with my extracurriculars anymore.”

“Mm, yeah,” Chaeyoung nods. “And Taeyong sunbaenim already graduated.”

“What?”

“Taeyong sunbaenim,” Chaeyoung repeats, chuckling. “I noticed that you were always with him when he was still in our school. You really have a close relationship with him, don’t you?”

Jaehyun pauses. Suddenly, the image of Taeyong in his mind is almost close to nothing. His touch is no longer there, only remnants of old burns and scars. _Go home, Jaehyun. It’s getting late._

He blinks once, clearing his throat. “Uh, yeah. You could say that.”

Chaeyoung smiles at him before shifting onto a different topic. Jaehyun rubs a hand over his clothed arm, trying to rid of flamed fingertips and the distant memory of someone’s lips.

* * *

He’s been in love with Taeyong for as long as he can remember. He is ten when he first met him, twelve when he first craved for his validation and smile, and a young fool when he first confessed. Victory is not something that easily comes. If it did, then perhaps all the heroes he knows would have had an easy life. He knows that victory is something he has to work hard for, but is victory really worth the pain if all he is receiving is endless loops of Taeyong’s image slowly turning blurred, if not gone?

He is eighteen and a fool, eighteen and still thinking about the way Taeyong kissed him from a year ago. Eighteen and still stuck in a cycle where his hyung left him. Never to move past where they ended, only staying. Maybe this is what it means to fall in love. An expanse of skin hidden away because all they would see is a burnt field of kisses and fingertips. Sometimes, he can still hear Taeyong’s pants against his ears, his cold sweat touching the base of his neck. He remembers how it hurt too much the first time, and yet he still looks for it in dark alleyways he passes by after school hours. Maybe if he searched hard enough, the moment he’s been waiting for will finally arrive. Maybe if he looked hard enough, he would wake up to his Taeyong hyung’s smile.

Maybe if he tried hard enough, Taeyong would finally let him slip away from his grasp.

Grunting, he pushes Jungwoo away from him, lips still swollen and red. Jungwoo is panting heavily when he detaches himself from Jaehyun’s lap.

“Sorry,” Jaehyun tells him.

“It’s alright.”

He’s still not used to it. To _this._ Whatever this is. Teeth, and bones, and kisses so light it only emphasizes Taeyong’s ruthlessness against him. He wants to forget, and so he kisses strangers and pretends that he’s doing fine. Even when all he does is think about how Taeyong is cruel for leaving him. And yet, he still wants him back, whether cruel or kind.

He finds that he now feels more lost than before. How many lips has he kissed over the year that his Taeyong hyung left him? What would _Taeyong hyung_ say? He thinks about Jungwoo’s lips during after school hours, thinks about Ten’s mouth that had kissed him before he graduated and told him to smile a little bit more, and wonders more about Chaeyoung’s moist ones lapping at the sides of his neck during the times where they would skip morning assembly just to see if what they have is worth risking their feelings for. None of them ever felt the same. None of those lips belonged to his Taeyong hyung.

More than a year, and he’s still _here._ Waiting. Left wondering.

If Taeyong comes back, _if he ever comes back,_ he would still find him rooted on the same spot. After all, broken handles will always remain broken.

* * *

“Hello, hyung.”

He is grown when he meets Taeyong again. Taller and wiser, and perhaps kinder than before. He’s dreamed of this before, dreamed of the exact moment he would get to meet his Taeyong hyung again. Unlike in his dreams though, today he stands proud. There are no aches in his chest, no burns on his skin. The ghost of Taeyong’s lips on his skin has now left permanently with the wind, but he still wonders – during midnights, or perhaps the break of dawn – if he would get the chance to meet him again. If his lips are still just the same. Ruthless. Unrelenting.

“It’s been a while,” he continues, and Taeyong seemed to be floating for a moment. He takes the chance to watch him closer. Taeyong is taller now, but still not as tall as him. In fact, he looks smaller with the amount of weight he’s lost. He seems different now. Not as ruthless as before. “How have you been, hyung?”

“Good...” Taeyong shifts on his feet and tugs at his coat. Jaehyun watches as he takes a good look at the campus, and when he turns back with a frown, he asks, “What are you doing here?”

Jaehyun clears his throat. “I’m, uhm, I’m an incoming freshman. I asked Johnny hyung to tour me around since I’m still unfamiliar with the place.”

“Oh.”

A beat of second passes by. A second too long for the both of them.

“Hyung,” Jaehyun calls for him again. “Can we talk?”

Taeyong seems to constrict at his question. “I’m- I-‘m sorry,” he stammers, shaking his head. “I’m sorry, Jaehyun.”

This, Jaehyun thinks, is the man who’s left him rooted on the same spot for years. For three years, he has seen nothing but the plain wallpapers inside Taeyong’s childhood bedroom and the old closet that still has its broken handle attached to its door frame. He was there. For three years. Alone and confused and a young fool.

He is supposed to feel mad, but how can he? When all he’s known his entire life is to love and love Taeyong with all he can give? How is anger a choice when his innocence has always told him that his dear Taeyong hyung is the only one deserving of his love and never something less?

And so, with a sigh, he says, “I know. I know, hyung. And I understand.”

Because what is there to forgive? The three lonely years? Or the ones that happened before the time they spent together? All the confessions and rejections, all the kisses and cries, all their victories and defeats. What is there to forgive?

“I’m sorry,” Taeyong repeats. “I- I was wrong. I’m sorry. I’m really, really sorry. Jaehyun, I-“

Jaehyun only smiles. “I’m okay now, hyung. It’s okay.”

A streak of sunlight peeks from above. The campus buzzes with students whose stories are all but the same. He thinks back to where they have grown and remembers the places they have lost themselves in.

* * *

Jaehyun is eight when he was first introduced to _him._ A boy whose eyes are warm and kind, and nothing like he’s ever seen before. He looks past his mother’s frame, sees a young kid who is nothing but a mere stranger still, and realizes that perhaps change is not something to be afraid of. The next day, he visits him again, calls him _Taeyong hyung_ for the first time, and offers him his mother’s fresh baked cookies.

At eleven, he learns how to dance. It’s not something he is completely fond of, just a small hobby he’s picked up from his friends, but he finds that Taeyong makes it look more pleasing to the eyes than others. And so he learns from him. He takes his knowledge and made them his own, praises him quietly with nothing but pure admiration, and Taeyong flushes pink.

Fourteen and Taeyong leaves him the first time for high school. _It’s great there,_ his hyung tells him, _I met a new friend. His name is Johnny._ He can only nod.

At fifteen, he is flooded with the need to grow up. His Taeyong hyung is a few steps ahead of him now despite them starting on the same line. Taeyong is growing, taking his time to explore himself during a crucial time where confusion will most likely visit you during days where you least expect. But Jaehyun doesn’t know that yet. And so he runs.

Sixteen and Jaehyun rejoices. He smiles when Taeyong goes up to him with a greeting falling from his lips. Maybe this time, he’ll finally catch up.

Sixteen and a confession. Sixteen and a rejection. Maybe this is what it means to fall in love. Maybe this is what love looks like up close. Jaehyun accepts his defeat, but he never surrendered. When the first rejection came, and the second, and the third, the fourth, fifth, sixth, he supposes this is what it means to fall in love. Confessions and defeats.

At seventeen, he receives a kiss and more. Suddenly, Taeyong is not only beside him but is now etched onto his skin like permanent ink. He cries and he burns, and he falls into fragments against his hold that he finds himself unable to pick pieces of himself and mold them into the person he used to be before feeling his Taeyong hyung’s lips against his skin. Suddenly, he is now nothing but a man who stands. He doesn’t run when Taeyong leaves him. Isn’t this how victory always looked to him? With Taeyong’s lips on him and nothing more?

At seventeen, Taeyong leaves him for the second time. He doesn’t run after him.

Seventeen and finds that broken handles on closet doors remain broken. That dirty pairs of white sneakers will always leave a mark.

Seventeen and he is still... _there._ Never moving. He has won with a kiss and a farewell, and yet victories aren’t supposed to feel like _this._

Seventeen and he wonders if this is what it means to fall in love. Maybe Taeyong has always been cruel in his own way.

Seventeen and he finds that Ten’s lips is different. Much gentler. Kinder, too. And so are Jungwoo and Chaeyoung’s, but they don’t feel the same. They never do.

At eighteen, he struggles to find balance with his feelings and what it means to stay rooted on one spot. Will Taeyong ever find him if he moves his feet? Where will he go? Home? Taeyong’s touch feels almost close to nothing now.

He runs again at nineteen. He finds that the wind is rough against his skin. He finds Taeyong somewhere in between barren land and concrete, and just like the first time, he smiles.

* * *

Jaehyun is twenty-three when he confesses again. The old closet inside Taeyong’s childhood bedroom is never to be seen anymore, only in memory. Maybe this is what it really means to be victorious.

**Author's Note:**

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